As you watch Nancy support four
students’ learning, note the actions of
the other students. Some are working
on computers, drafting their responses
to the writing prompt. Others are
reading in their selected books or
talking quietly in their book clubs.

Nancy works with four students
who’ve all read the same text. Other
students are reading this text, but their
assessment data indicates that they are
drawing conclusions with evidence
and don’t need the small-group lesson
at this time.

Strategic Guidance

Guiding students’ thinking requires
that teachers be strategic. To ensure
that students develop the habits
needed to be successful on their own,
teachers should refrain from telling
students what to think. Direct explanations are problematic and can result in
adult-dependent learners who wait on
their teachers (and parents, employers,
or friends) for an answer. Teachers can
use three tools—questions, prompts,
and cues—to be sure students are
cognitively engaged in their learning.

Questions

When guiding students’ thinking,
it’s important to ask questions that
probe knowledge gaps and misunderstandings. Questions help uncover
students’ thinking, and sometimes that
thinking has gone astray. Questions
about content should be followed up
with ones that probe beneath a student’s answer. In other words, guiding
students’ thinking cannot be solely
based on elicitation questions drawing
on information you’ve already taught.

Strategic teachers often ask an elab-oration question, as you see Nancy dowith students in the video. Such ques-tions invite students to share their rea-soning, which can focus their attentionon considering a range of possibilitiesas they respond. Elaboration questionscan be generic (“Why do you thinkso?”) or more specific (“What do youthink motivated the character to actthat way?”). The point of asking anelaboration question is to identifyreasons for students’ thinking. If theirreasons don’t flow logically, theymay need prompting or cueing toreconsider their response.

Clarifying questions are also useful
in uncovering thinking. These questions—queries like, “Where did you
find that?” or “What evidence did the
author provide that would support
your claim?”—invite students to
provide an example or evidence. It’s
also useful for students to ask one
another these types of questions as
they learn to think about their reasons
and explanations; this helps them
solve problems when their teachers
aren’t around.

Prompts and Cues

When an answer to a question reveals
confusion, an error, or a misconception, teachers should avoid providing direct explanations. Instead,
use prompting and cueing to guide
thinking.

Prompts are designed to get some-thing happening in the learner’s mind.

Sometimes prompts draw on background knowledge (“Remember when
we talked about . . .”); other times,
they involve processes or procedures
learners have been taught (“There’s
something we usually do when there’s
a word we don’t recognize”). Prompts
can also be reflective (for example, “Is
that making sense?” or “Have you considered an alternative?”).

Teachers can also use cues to guidetheir students’ thinking. Cues are moredirect than prompts. They generallyshift a learner’s attention and includea range of strategies such as verbal,gestural, physical, visual, and envi-ronmental cues. As you watch Nancyinteract with the four students, you’llsee her use a number of cues. She cuesthem to specific passages in the text,changes her voice to emphasize spe-cific parts, and gestures to help themnotice ideas and information.

These three strategies—questions,
prompts, and cues—help teachers catalyze students’ strategic thinking. A
one-time lesson isn’t going to ensure
that students develop the habits necessary to become problem solvers, but
multiple interactions like these will
build the skills necessary for students
to assume greater responsibility for
their learning. Imagine students
having 100 or so lessons like this with
Nancy—those learners almost can’t
help but become text analyzers and
problem solvers. They will soon integrate evidence into their discussion
and writing. They’ll use various
approaches to arrive at a solution, and
be able to defend it. They’ll learn to
value the perspective of others as they
analyze problems and work out ways
to address them. These students are
being apprenticed into a way of
thinking, but not told what to think.
There’s a big difference. That’s how
problem solvers are created: one
interaction at a time. EL

1The opening question of this prompt,
which all students in this classroom
will eventually be posed, is based on the
essential question that’s the focus of the
class. Details in the rest of the prompt vary
based on the book each student selected.

Douglas Fisher

( dfisher@mail.sdsu.
edu) and Nancy Frey

( nfrey@mail.sdsu.edu)
are professors in the
Department of Educational Leadership at
San Diego State University and teacher
leaders at Health Sciences High and
Middle College. They are ASCD authors,
and their work inspired ASCD’s FIT
Teaching® program ( www.ascd.org/
professional-development/about-fit-teaching.aspx).